It is standard, as for example seen in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,317,397 and 4,381,686 both of Wilfried Ess, to cut a plate workpiece (which can be a single rectangular panel of a stack of identical such panels) into a plurality of pieces (which can also be a stack of such pieces) lying in closely juxtaposed parallel rows. The individual pieces which may all be of different widths and lengths are then sorted and sent to different destinations for use in different parts of a manufacturing operation and small pieces may be sent to a specific scrap-disposal location.
In German published patent application 2,702,725 also of W. Ess (filed with a claim to an Austrian priority of 10 Apr. 1976) a system is described wherein the subdivided workpiece is deposited on a stripping tray that can move past a vertically displaceable distributing table so that the individual pieces can be moved off one at a time. A roller conveyor moves the pieces in turn from the distributing table to a plurality of different outfeed conveyors.
Such an arrangement requires that the entire system be unloaded before the stripping tray can be reloaded. Thus its cycling time is relatively long. In addition in this arrangement the time to displace the shortest piece must be set to be equal to that of the longest piece, so that in general the sorting and distributing is very slow.